SAMARCANDA, Uzbekistan (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the main objective of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine had not changed and was to “liberate” all of Donbass in eastern from this country.
Speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan, the Russian president accused the West of wanting to dismember Russia for decades and said he sent his army to Ukraine in February to thwart that goal.
Speaking publicly about the conflict in Ukraine for the first time since the start last week of the counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces, which dislodged the Russian army from the Kharkiv region, Vladimir Putin threatened to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure and said, “We’ll see how (this counter-offensive) ends.”
(Editing by Reuters, French version Bertrand Boucey, edited by Sophie Louet)
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